The Seattle Times: Sports: Mariners Blog
Quote:
Anyone wondering what manager Mike Hargrove told his pitchers and catchers behind closed doors the other day as training camp opened? Well, it went something like this: Get opponents to put the ball in play.
That was essentially it. The Mariners' braintrust has staked its future on the ability of the team's defense to turn ground balls into outs. If that doesn't happen, then all of those winter acquisitions of rather-ordinary-looking ground ball pitchers will wind up generating some rather-ordinary-looking returns. In order for anything better to happen, the ball has to be put in play by opposing hitters. Sounds simple, but it wasn't last season. On too many nights, the Mariners saw too many pitches thrown by their starters. Their relievers as well.
|
Its an intriguing theory. But considering the park doesn't really help groundballs, unless they grow the grass up?, this ignores their old mantra concerning getting pitchers tailor made for the park (Washburn).
Also, with an excellent left side of the infield I'm fairly confident in success there, but Sexson just doesn't have the reach that Olerud did even though Richie is what a foot taller?
Here it is hit it
That might work but the following performances last year by the starters in the HR/F category worries me as Felix is the guy this team will be counting on in the Ace role of Ace+4Fours
Felix 16.4%|15.4%
Washburn 9.3%|8.8% (He's an oddity as a Flyball pitcher who doesn't give up the HR as often as expected)
Weaver 14.9%|10.1%
Batista 9.2|9.3%
Rameriz 9%|13.7%
11-12% is average
Much thanks to
Fangraphs
__________________
I'm sorry I left for a while. I needed a vaction, and then work changed substantially. I'm over 50 hour weeks, plus two hours a day of commuting time.
A few weeks ago I launched my own
blog about Seattle Sounders FC and Life in Puget Sound. I won't be by these parts often as my focus has changed. Sorry about the unannounced retirement.